Account Blocked

First topic message reminder :

I was given a notice when I tried to sign into avacweb that my account was claimed to have suspicious activity so I put in the verification code and it gave me this

Andrea Borman wrote:I had not thought about that Runawayhorses. But yes it is strange that the OPs username,puppycheese is not blocked from this site,and this is also a Forumotion forum. That is the Online Guardian has not blocked him from here. Because if it did he would not have been able to post this thread. So it could be that the anti-spam plugin blocks users from some sites, but not others. But I am not sure about this. Unless it's not the Online Guardian plugin that's stopping the OP from logging in,but some other problem.

Well first how this could all play out is a program on his computer doesn't like a script running on those forums so it triggers a reaction, and the online guardian then picks up on the programs reaction and doesn't like that, so it then displays that message and blocks them from being able to login. So really two things could be causing his inability to login, one is the scripts running on the forums that triggers his program that doesn't like it and the online guardian that doesn't like his programs reaction. It could be resolved my removing the script in question or setting the program to ignore whatever it is its responding to. Easy suggested he tell his program its safe, same thing as ignoring it.

But really if the script is indeed causing this issue it makes you wonder who else this might be happening to, in which case the best action to take would be to remove the script or rewrite it.

Now, Easy is saying the "Online Guardian" is a program you download to your computer, its suppose to keep you safe from malicious sites or porn sites, anything inappropriate for children, so I googled "Online Guardian" and it is a program that you download and install on your computer referred to as "Parental Control Software". Now if forumotion has this software implemented on the forums I do not know, or if puppycheese has it I don't know. But a program like that is not going to like a lot of things, I would uninstall that over-protective childish program altogether, but I never would have installed it in the first place.

puppycheese, also provide me your email address you used to register.

For everyone else, who has been speculating & discussing it. Please check Leeloo's posts here for more information.
https://help.forumotion.com/t121065-suspicious-activity#798600
https://help.forumotion.com/t111047-online-guardian-suspicious-activity-on-an-account#727940

Not much in those links really sanket, I got nothing out of it but people sending Leeloo there login info and she does something and comes back and says you can login now. I did not learn anything about the program or this situation.

I did get this much out of it though, I learned the program has people on its blacklist that should not be and blocking people it shouldn't.

I'm not sure but I have access to my forums and this forums all other foumotion forums I can't login to

The point is she can manually remove the users for whichever reason they are getting into that list either username, email address or possibly IP.
There is nothing related to the programs they run on their computer. Its because, of their details being listed as accounts with suspicious activity.

Ok, thanks for the info sanket, I guess the real question is now why did there details get listed as accounts with suspicious activity, but I will not pursue this any farther its not my business or place to investigate it if didn't happen to me.

thanks again.

Sanket wrote:The point is she can manually remove the users for whichever reason they are getting into that list either username, email address or possibly IP.
There is nothing related to the programs they run on their computer. Its because, of their details being listed as accounts with suspicious activity.

Well it's not so much what the anti-spam plugin is doing. As it's common for some websites to ask you to fill in captcha if it suspects unusual activity on your account. It happened to me sometimes with Yahoo Mail, but their the capatcha works and once you fill it in it lets you in again.

But with the Forumotion plugin no matter how many times you fill in the capatcha correctly.It just says "incorrect code" and you cannot get into your account. Which is a big problem for those unfortunate users who are blocked. When Leeloo was here we could at least go to her and she would respond withing a day or 2 and she would unblock those users. By removing them from the block list. Now Leeloo has left Forumotion Sanket told me on another thread that only the Godfather has access to the block list and only he can unblock a user. But the problem is that the Godfather cannot be PM'd by members,so if anyone gets blocked they cannot contact him directly as they could Leeloo.

A lot of Forumotion forums both users and admins seem to be having this problem with the plugin,according to the threads here. So the problem is known,yet I don't understand why Forumotion won't fix it. Could not a Forumotion member of staff talk to whoever is responsible for maintaining the FM plug in and get it fixed? At least so that when users fill in the captcha correctly,which they do, it then lets them back into their accounts as it should do?

We don't really have direct contact with the technicians and developer, and even if we ask, I don't think we can get an answer, we can ask TGF to answer this, but he's not answering our requests lately, well you can support this suggestion though.
https://help.forumotion.com/t122386-better-forumotion-spam-filter

Thank you for you reply Jophy. Yes I did post on that thread started by Steve about the anti-spam filter. I know that other forum services like Proboards and FreeForums.Org also have their own anti-spam plug ins.And every website has them.

But when it's not working or blocking out users so they cannot get onto the forums. Because of a bug,then it really does need to be fixed.So it should not be filled under suggestion but a site bug or problem. I really think you should fix it as it is causing a lot of problems. And it's not fair on the Forumotion users or admins.As it's ruing their forums as they could be loosing members. Because they cannot log in.

I know it's up to Forumotion whether they do fix it or not and all we can do is tell the staff about it. But I think the problems with the plug in should be taken more seriously by the techs or whoever is in charge.As it's not something forum admins can resolve on their own. As we cannot disable or modify this plug in.As we don't have access to it's settings,but Forumotion does.

As far as i consider it, the plugin is totally based on a manual verification as the FM page is displayed on it. The form is just step 1 of the verification process. Step 2 is to come to this forum & make a request manually. Either ways, about the delays caused by Leeloo's abscence we all regret it, but there is nothing we could do.

Sanket wrote:As far as i consider it, the plugin is totally based on a manual verification as the FM page is displayed on it. The form is just step 1 of the verification process. Step 2 is to come to this forum & make a request manually. Either ways, about the delays caused by Leeloo's abscence we all regret it, but there is nothing we could do.

Well you said that The Godfather is the one that users need to go to if they get blocked and cannot unblock their account via the online captcha. But if only that could be fixed and users could complete the captcha, that would solve the problem,maybe. So I still think there is a fault on that plugin,regarding the captcha.

Thats what I am mentioning, its done on purpose according to me since it displays a Forumotion page to contact the support.

Sanket wrote:Thats what I am mentioning, its done on purpose according to me since it displays a Forumotion page to contact the support.

So what you are saying is that you don't think there is any fault? You think the reason why users cannot get unblocked no matter how many times they fill in the captcha correctly,is because the account is permanently blocked?Though there was no page to contact FM support only more captcha.
I suppose it could be that though I don't know. Yet the message my users got was incorrect verification code but it was not. It was also the case with other posters here who had the same problem. But when I changed the members usernames it went away and they could then log in again. So I don't know what the cause is. You also have a Forumotion forum. Did it happen on your forum too?

Okay, you seem to be confusing yourself with a million questions.
Simply list down each question, i will respond to each one.

Sanket wrote:Okay, you seem to be confusing yourself with a million questions.
Simply list down each question, i will respond to each one.

Well I don't understand exactly why the Online Guardian annt-spam plug in would block quite a number of users with short usernames like Jane,for example. This happened on other forums according to the threads I read here not just mine. Though I did notice that when I went to the StopForum Spam website. You will find that if you type in a username and one or several listings come up. The OG plugin might block that username. It's the same if the IP or email is listed on StopForumSpam. Though in my case it was only the members usernames that were block. Not the IPs or emails. So once I changed the usernames they were then able to log in.
The biggest problems is as I said the captcha as other members here have also found. It does not work as the page just refreshes to more captcha.

Andrea, please read my posts again. You have just confused yourself with too much information.

Also, let me clarify i don't know the basis of the spam list. I assume its username, email, or IP Address.

Well I don't really understand how these spam filters work. Ape explained it better on another thread,about suggestion for a better spam filter started by Steve. The best thing to do is to let Forumotion sort it out, and if I or any other Forumotion founders have anymore problems. Then we should come back here to Forumotion support and let you know. At the moment there are no more users blocked on my forum anyway.

I am having trouble registering for some forums too? why does it say I can't register because of something with spam? I have never spammed before. Not that I can think of.

puppycheese wrote:I am having trouble registering for some forums too? why does it say I can't register because of something with spam? I have never spammed before. Not that I can think of.

So it's not only logging into the forums you are having a problem with?
Well as for registration,it could be that the username is taken. Or that some forum admins have enabled only lower case letters or numbers. Try choosing another username for registration see if that works.

no it's not that it tells me that I can't register because of suspicion of spam or something like that

Hello,

That is a default option on the admin panel that won't let you register with most common spam names:
Admin Panel > General > Security > Unauthorize subscriptions made with the most commonly used spam usernames. : When it's set to 'Yes'

Yes I know that already! That's not my concern my concern is why my username is blocked?

Well the answer is already provided on the option itself:

Unauthorize subscriptions made with the most commonly used spam usernames

There is one problem I don't have access to the forums and that is not my problem. My account is blocked for no reason on multiple sites thats my problem.

We already made a request for that, but since TGF won't answer our requests, it's not our fault, since we're just volunteer staff members here and don't really have technical abilities to fix this, we try our best to pass everything and get it manually fixed by the person in charged.

There is a suggestion for this as I mentioned:
https://help.forumotion.com/t122386-better-forumotion-spam-filter

Supporting it is the best thing to do for now.

puppycheese wrote:There is one problem I don't have access to the forums and that is not my problem. My account is blocked for no reason on multiple sites thats my problem.

Well as for the registration,if it won't let you register with that username try another one.As for your account being blocked on the other forums. You said it's on other FM forum but not this one. So you could create another account then explain to the admin,you had to because your other account was blocked. He could then close your old account and you could use your new one. However if all your registration attempts are being blocked it could be your IP that may be blocked. In which case you could maybe get your ISP to change it.

Not really sure but i think this support forum is on some other server and that is why your not banned on here. I take it we have the same system on all forum and the support forum needs to be on a single server for you to get on to to report your problems to us.

Well dont hold me to this it's only what i am thinking as your banned on all over forum and not this one

As i Also think when you have a problem like trying to log on to a site like you have been getting on LG's Forum and the other one it then set you as trying to hack that account that.s why you get the onlinegard.. page now this is down to you trying over and over again to get in to your account so now our servers think your a hacker and have put your name and ip address on the black list as a hacker or just some one that is a risk to the forums.. as i said This has been sent to TGF and im sure when he gets online he will deal with all your problems in one go

Ape

That's interesting APE. So that would explain why members from other FM forums are blocked from those forum but not blocked from here. I did not know that as I assumed Forumotion Support forums were on the same servers and systems as our FM forums. Thank you for letting us know that.
The problem is The Godfather had disabled contact by PM for members. So if we get a problem we cannot PM him like we could Leeloo.
Which makes it more difficult.

APE wrote:I take it we have the same system on all forum and the support forum needs to be on a single server for you to get on to to report your problems to us.

"report your problems to us" you mean to YOU and the staff. Correct me if I'm wrong but these issues are supposed to be reported via a new thread in a post so a staff member can handle it or directly to a "staff" member, and a "helper" is NOT a staff member. I was told by sanket a helper is in no way a staff member.

In any case reporting the problem to you has reaped no results but steering people to someone else. You have shed no more light on this issue than any member here because you don't have access to anymore info that anyone else does that is a regular member. Quit pretending to be staff and have inside information and apologizing for sever issues when you are in no way responsible or have anything to do with it. Its really laughable. Go help answer questions about codes or something useful.

Runawayhorses wrote:report your problems to us" you mean to YOU and the staff. Correct me if I'm wrong but these issues are supposed to be reported via a new thread in a post so a staff member can handle it or directly to a "staff" member, and a "helper" is NOT a staff member. I was told by sanket a helper is in no way a staff member.

That's right,a helper does not have moderator rights, if that's what you mean.
From what it said on another thread,helpers are members who have contributed a lot to the forum. I think APE could be right about the IP issue. That would explain why the OP cannot register on any FM forum. Also as I said the members blocked from other FM forums by the anti-spam plugin are not blocked from this forum. Or they would not be able to post. So this forum could be on a different server. But the OPs problem needs to be sorted.